Airport, schools, homes lost power as storm moved through

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»Play VideoStrong winds destroyed a barn in Polk County on Thursday morning. (Photo from Ken Richards)

PORTLAND, Ore – A strong storm rolled through the Portland metro area on Thursday morning, knocking out power in several spots, including at Portland International Airport.

The outage left the terminal in the dark for about a half hour, although an airport official tweeted there would only be “minor” flight delays. | Check flight status

Much of the airport has backup power and all vital systems and checkpoints operated as normal, an airport spokesman said.

Strong wind from the storm also knocked down a barn in Polk County. A National Weather Service meteorologist said the barn was knocked over by 70 miles per hour "straightline wind," not a tornado or downburst.

Pacific Power reported that 12,000+ customers in Northeast Portland lost power because a tree got knocked down. Power was restored by 10:30 a.m. | Pacific Power outage list

A handful of schools lost power because of the outage, including Alameda, Irvington, Faubion, Vernon and Sabin schools. All schools stayed open, although district officials said parents could have picked up students if they so chose.

“Children are safe,” the district said on Facebook during the outage. “The phone lines at these schools have also been affected.”

Concordia University canceled morning classes because of the outage. Classes were set to resume at 1 p.m.

Portland General Electric reported that several thousand of its customers in the metro area lost power, mostly in Clackamas County. | PGE outage list

KATU meteorologist Rhonda Shelby said the bursts of heavy rain were part of a cold front that moved west to east across our part of the state.

The front had some tropical moisture in it, but moved quite quickly so it didn't hammer any one area for long.

The front moved through by late morning. Scattered showers were expected for the rest of the day.

The Hillsboro area saw the strongest wind gusts in the metro area at 35 miles per hour, although some areas above 3,000 feet saw winds around 50 miles per hour.

A weather station at the airport recorded around a quarter inch of rain over the course of about two hours.